Discovery and Social Media

Today I’m going to veer a bit off of the traditional course, and discuss social media; at least as it applies to Discovery.

Recently, I joined a law school colleague to give a CLE presentation to our local, county bar association. We titled the presentation, Discovery & Social Media — you can view a copy here. My portion of the presentation centered on the types and sources of social media information, and how to obtain the documents, especially the account history. My partner followed with discussion of admissibility under the Federal Rules and our state’s Evidence Code.

The handouts included this list of discovery requests I’ve compiled, and links to a couple of sources for good information. I can’t remember where I got some of the requests, and I’ve added others when I receive “valid” objections from other parties because they’re “overly broad and burdensome.”

Our presentation touched on the fact that social media account information is most useful for depositions and other such purposes, as opposed to its trial aspects, though that’s important, too.

Since we’re talking discovery, I also want to point you this post at Lawyerist, which highlights proper deposition objections. I suggest that you look at the comments for some in-depth additions.